I have always loved using the book Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia with my student but I have two new favorite books by her so I’m using all 3 books this month in therapy for my younger students.  The three books include Tap Tap Bang Bang, Toot Toot Beep Beep, and Tip Tip Dig Dig.  I created some visual and follow-up activities to pair with the books that I wanted to share as free resources with you.  It’s always great to have some new material at the start of the school year!  I love these books because they use simple language, are engaging for the students, and have really nice clear pictures.  I know my students are going to have fun with these books!

Each week I’m going to share about one of the books and some follow-up activities.  This week is all about Tap Tap Bang Bang which focuses on different tools and the noises those tools make.  I created some visuals to pair with the book.  I got the board book version of this book so it is more durable and works well to put Velcro in the book.  I placed a piece of hard Velcro in the book to pair with one of the visuals I created (you can figure out where in the book works to place the Velcro).  I laminated and cut out all 20 pictures and then placed a piece of soft Velcro on the back of them.

At the beginning I work on having the students identify the cover of the book and the title.  Then the student can find the visual to match the cover of the book.  You can even work on those “front” and “back” concepts as you look at the closed book.

I love this book because we make all the different sounds of the tools.  I often have my students even my limited verbal students try and imitate the tool noises even when they can’t say the name of the tool.  They think it is so funny!  “Cree Craw, Cree Craw” to cut with the saw.  We point to the picture of the saw on the page and I model the word “saw” for my students.  Many times my students only know one or two of these tool items so it is good vocabulary exposure with all the different tools in this book.  Then I have the student find the picture of the saw and place it in the book.

There are a lot of different tool pictures for this book so you can always reduce the visual field of choices for each page.  For some of my students, I provided a visual choice of 2-3 pictures instead of all the pictures which helped the student select the correct tool item to match the tool in the book.

We continued this way throughout the book.  We make the noises of the different tools and find the correct visual to match.  Then if the student is verbal I model the tool word for the student and often times the student will say the name of the tool.

After we finish reading the book I just made one of my simple identification boards to pair with the book.  I tried to use more of the common tool items on the board.  Some of you might be familiar with these identification boards that I often create to pair with different themes.  They are just a quick go to follow- up activity that I like to use with my students.

Sometimes I fold the paper so the students only have to focus on one line at a time.  I name all the items on the first line.  Then I provide a simple direction, “find the saw and color it red”.  If you need to cover up one of the pictures on the first line you can have the student select the correct tool item from a visual choice of only 2 items.  You can also give the student a choice of crayon colors if they are still working on color identification.  For example, I hold up 2 crayons and say “take red” and then have them color the saw red.  Don’t forget if your student is non-verbal you can have them request that needed crayon color with a communication book or AAC device.

I keep going line by line until the entire page is complete.  If your students know most of the tool items and are more successful with following directions you can have them work on using the entire page and not go line by line.  You can also provide them a 2-step direction “color the wrench green and the hammer blue” or “color the nails pink and the mallet brown”.  Lots of opportunities to gather data on following multi-step directions!  For your higher functioning students you can have them take turns giving directions to each other.  Work on them identifying when it is their turn and trying to form a complete phrase when providing those instructions to a peer.

I also created a Tool Memory game you can play with your students.  Just print off 2 copies of each tool page either on card stock or you can glue the pictures onto construction paper.  You want to make sure your students can’t see the tool pictures through the paper when you turn them over to play the memory game.  I also laminated my memory cards so they will hold up longer with all my therapy groups.

Just play the game like regular memory.  You can use only a few matches or all 18 matches depending on your students’ skill level.  Place all the pairs face down on the table.  Have the student turn over two cards and identify if those 2 tool cards are the “same” or “different”.

You can even have your students name the tool item on the card when they turn it over if they know the tool names or you can again model those vocabulary terms for them.  If the two cards are the same the student gets to keep the match.  You can play the student gets to go again if they get a match but you don’t have to.  Just make sure the students know the rules you are using before you start the game.  The students can work on requesting “my turn” when it is their turn in the game.   

If you are interested in using any of these products click the links

Tap Tap Bang Bang Book Pictures

Tool Identification Board

Tool Memory Game